


Blood of the Covenant, Water of the Womb

by PegasusBoots



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Brotherly Love, Drabble, Female My Unit - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Nohr | Conquest Route, One Shot, Or Leo/Corrin if that's your thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 08:50:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10987512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PegasusBoots/pseuds/PegasusBoots
Summary: Corrin struggles with the revelation that she has no relation to her beloved Nohrian siblings





	Blood of the Covenant, Water of the Womb

Leo had found her sitting on the ground, as if in a trance.

“Ah, there you are. Here. Drink this,” Leo urged gently, offering a small cup of tea.

Corrin seemed to barely register Leo’s voice as she stared blankly at the opening of the tent they currently occupied. After a moment, she took the cup from him, her hands trembling. Hesitantly, Leo sat on the floor beside her. Corrin said nothing, continuing her silent vigil of the tent’s entrance.

A few hours earlier, Corrin had made the difficult decision to forsake her birth family and return to Nohr with her adoptive siblings. Corrin’s return was a victory for Nohr certainly, and no one had been happier about it than the Nohrian nobles themselves. Camilla’s lost lamb had returned to the fold and Elise’s favorite playmate could again braid her hair. Xander’s precious Little Princess was again under his watchful eye, to never be lost again. Her absence had weighed heavily on Leo. She was the only one among them who shared his love of academia and the pursuit of knowledge, yes, but to attribute his aching sense of loss to this would be incorrect. No, at the heart of everything, Corrin was his kind older sister with whom he spent long hours sharing thoughts on books which sparked conversations lasting into the wee hours of the morning. It was her gentle understanding the day Leo had thrown his practice blade away in frustration, her taking his hand to lead him to the library to find his first tome. It was her acceptance of him as not the younger prince of Nohr, but as just Leo. He had missed his sister.

But as Corrin found herself surrounded by the relieved smiles and eager embraces of her siblings, Leo had noticed her gaze never seemed to focus on them. Her eyes betrayed that her mind was far away from the elation surrounding her.

After having driven the Hoshidan nobles and their forces back, Xander had led their own troops in the long march back to Nohr. Corrin had been uncharacteristically reticent as she walked. Occasionally, she’d reach up to her throat to brush her fingers along a small stone she now sported around her neck. Leo had pulled his steed alongside Xander’s to point out Corrin’s odd behavior, but the crown prince had dismissed it as merely exhaustion. 

As the sun had begun its final descent in the sky, the Nohrian forces stopped to make camp for the night. Leo had lost track of Corrin, until he finally found her alone in a tent far away from the others.

She had yet to change her clothes, her usually faultless armor bearing the dents and scratches from the day’s confrontation. Her silvery hair was disheveled and hung limply around her dirtied face. She had looked so…empty. Leo frowned to himself. He was unaccustomed to seeing her in such a state.

Now they sat, side by side in silence, Leo’s head brimming with questions that went unspoken. Leo sighed, shifting to face her.

“Sister? Are you-”

His words froze in his throat at the sight of a solitary tear streaking down Corrin’s face. In his entire life, Leo had never seen his older sister cry. She was the epitome of optimism, facing even her isolation in the Northern Fortress with a determined smile on her face. No matter what hurtful things their father had levied at her, Corrin had taken it all in stride. Each time she had inevitably lost to Xander when they had sparred, ensuring she could not yet take her freedom, she always smiled at their older brother and thanked him. To see her, a veritable bastion of resolve crumbling beneath an unseen weight, was unsettling.

Unsure of how to soothe her, Leo tentatively wrapped an arm around Corrin’s slumped shoulders. She stiffened under his touch, tightly gripping the teacup, but did nothing to move away from him. She took a shuddering breath and sighed deeply, another tear rolling down her cheek. Leo bit his lip. All the times she had picked him up when he was low, all the times she had reassured him when he had doubted; he didn’t know what to say to her.

“Leo.”

Corrin’s voice was feeble as she addressed him, a far cry from her usual energetic bravado, but it cut through the silence like a blade. She didn’t face him, instead sustaining her watch of the tent’s flap.

“Corrin…?” he hazarded, uncertainty creeping its way into his own voice.

Without notice, she turned to him, his mahogany eyes meeting her scarlet ones filled with unshed tears.

“Leo…did you know?” she asked quietly. Leo’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“I’m sorry Sister, but I don’t know what you mean…” he murmured. 

At this, Corrin suddenly jerked out of Leo’s embrace, the tears spilling from her eyes as she narrowed them into a glare. 

“Did you know the whole time that we’re not actually related?!” she snapped.

_Oh._

Unable to withstand her piercing gaze, Leo’s eyes fell to the ground beside her. It had been Xander’s idea to never tell Corrin the truth of her birth. Shortly after she had been brought to Nohr, her memories of Hoshido had been repressed with a variety of dark magics. Easier for her to be molded that way, their father had said. Xander, the sentimental fool that he was, claimed that if the truth were to be revealed, the magic could undo itself and cause her harm. Far more likely was that Xander was afraid that Corrin would leave him and his siblings if she knew.

But now she does know. 

Corrin snarled and pitched the teacup across the room; it shattered somewhere behind Leo’s back.

“Tell me!” she hissed. He flinched at the abnormal ferocity of her voice, but forced himself to meet her intense stare.

“Yes, Sister. I knew. We all knew,” Leo whispered.

At this, something in Corrin seemed to break, all the anger dissipated from her face as her expression went blank. She pulled herself away from Leo, pulling her knees to her chest and hugging them to her. A ragged cry ripped from her throat as she buried her face in her hands. 

For the moment, all Leo could do was watch her shoulders quake as her tiny form was wracked with sobs. He cursed his inexperience with situations like this. No one had come to him with their problems; why would they, when Camilla was more than happy to indulge them? He closed his eyes for a moment and tried to focus and think about what to do logically. However, Corrin’s miserable cries beside him quickly made him realize that this was no place for logic or reason. 

“L-Leo, why didn’t anyone think to t-tell me?” Corrin hiccupped. Leo’s eyes snapped open and fell to her shuddering figure. She hid her face behind her hands, palms pressing into her still leaking eyes. Without thinking, Leo reached toward her, taking one of her trembling hands into both of his. She looked up at him with one doleful, crimson eye.

“Corrin,” Leo began softly, “we never told you because it never mattered.”

Hearing this, Corrin’s gaze steeled. Leo squeezed her hand lightly before continuing.

“You are, and always will be our sister, Corrin. Blood was never a deciding factor,” he stated simply. Leo looked away, an embarrassed flush creeping up his neck.

“Xander, Camilla, Elise, and I… We all have different mothers. Queen Katerina birthed Xander, but the rest of us were just results of Father’s flings with his numerous concubines,” Leo said bitterly. He met Corrin’s gaze, noting that hers had softened.

“But that doesn’t mean Xander isn’t my brother, nor Camilla and Elise my sisters. I don’t know what I’d do without you all…even if you sometimes drive me up a wall.”

Leo smirked at her, his heart feeling lighter as he noticed the telltale curl of a smile on Corrin’s face as well. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with her free hand. Taking a shuddering breath, Corrin withdrew her hand and scooted herself next to Leo once more. 

“Thank you, Leo,” she murmured, laying her head gently on his shoulder.

“I was warring with myself. Wondering if I had made the right choice in coming back to you.” She shook her head.

“I never should have doubted you all. I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Leo encircled her shoulders with his arm, resting his head against hers.

“Please. You couldn’t get rid of us even if you tried,” he jibed, eliciting a weak laugh from Corrin.

“I’m glad you’re back, Sister.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for taking the time to read this! This ficlet came about when I got to thinking about how there was never really a moment in Conquest when Corrin really acknowledged that they had no relation to their siblings (S-Supports aside). That being said, this isn't perfect, and I actually never intended to have the story revolve around Corrin and Leo. So apologies if Leo is a little OOC. The title was heavily inspired by the proverb: the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, meaning that the relationships we form ourselves are stronger than those thrust upon us by the circumstances of our birth. Please let me know what you all think!


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